


out from the dark

by impossibletruths



Series: until the dawn [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Post-Canon, Prompt Fill, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 19:47:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17835020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: It is an afterthought of a victory, a formality and a herald of the work yet to come, but that does not mean she cannot spare a moment to be grateful for what she has.Or, what happens after the smoke clears.





	out from the dark

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt _war’s end kiss_ \+ vesper/cullen. originally posted to [tumblr](https://cityandking.tumblr.com/post/175179677832/out-from-the-dark).

In truth, the end of the war comes some two weeks after the defeat of Corypheus. Without Calpernia or the Lord Seeker or the monster himself, it is a few days hard work to round up the last of the enemy and route them from their burrows. Those few yet sane surrender; those driven mad by the lyrium die by the sword, their own or those of the Inquisition. Vesper presses her lips tight together and arrives too late to stop it and accepts the white flag with a stern countenance and a tired heart.

They call it the Twelve Days Surrender, and it is a weary and bitter and hard-won thing, but it is a victory nevertheless.

The return to Skyhold lacks the celebration and fanfare warranted only two weeks prior; they clatter across the bridge on travel-worn steeds in mud-splattered clothes, slide from their saddles into a half-empty courtyard. A stuttering stable boy and narrow dalish girl take the mounts without a word, and a messenger runs their reports to Josephine for her to pass along to those who need them. The prisoners have been left among the valley camp under strict guard, a headache for another day, and the mighty Inquisitor and her battle-hardened companions go in search of the baths.

Vesper soaks a long time hidden away up in her rooms, long enough for the knots to work out of her back and the water to go lukewarm. She lies there with her head tilted back against the edge of the tub and breathes, waiting to feel the triumph, the thrill of the end of this years-long war. The most she can muster is a weary relief. This victory feels more of an afterthought. Corypheus, that had been a win, success in the face of certain death, facing down impossible odds and coming out all the stronger. This, for all that it is the end of the war written on parchment,  _we the undersigned surrender to the Inquisition and vow to cease hostilities, in the Maker’s name so swear it…_

It’s such a paltry ending, the rounding up of a last few dozen combatants, the few lucky––or unlucky––to miss the pitched battle in the Arbor Wilds. It feels less a final blow and more like the beginning of a clean up effort she imagines will take months, if not years.

But the Inquisition has always done this hard, thankless work, and it seems the war’s end will do little to change that. She almost appreciates the consistency.

Eventually she drags herself out of the bath, towels herself dry and tugs on something clean and light. Summer has circled its way around the world again, and the light fades late these days; it is still bright outside her windows when she is finally clean and dressed. A dozen things wait for her on her desk––and that is all the more reason to disbelieve this so-called victory, this so-called peace; how can there be peace when there are still shattered trade routes and homeless and the lost and–– 

She presses her fingers to the bridge of her nose and staves off that swelling exhaustion.

She makes an effort to return to her work, she does, but when she musters up the will to drag a report towards her the letters shift on the page, illegible. She  crosses to her couch, hovers there a moment, and then settles at the edge of the bed instead, staring at the cold and empty fireplace. The fireplace stares back evenly, and so she tips herself back, splays out atop her blankets and peers up at the ceiling, at the sliver of vibrant mural she can just see above the headboard. 

Her heart twinges at the color, the reminder. She sits up again.

The balcony beckons, and so she rises, steps out into the early summer evening. She stares down at Skyhold, everyone wandering like ants in the light of the evening, none of them looking up at the Inquisitor high above them. She sighs, heavy and long, nostril’s flaring.

None of it does any good. There’s a buzzing beneath her too-tight skin, and she feels both too full and hollow at once, and her thoughts wander, static like snowfall clouding her mind. The world feels like a faraway thing, distant and desolate. The beginning of a headache pulses behind her eyes. She would, she thinks, like to go somewhere. She wishes she had somewhere to go.

Admitting defeat, she slips out of her room and down the endless flights of stairs to the hall below. She nods to the few she recognizes, conjures up a smiles for Josephine speaking quietly with the lingering remnant of the Orlesian delegation at one table, and makes her exit as quickly and quietly as she can.

Few walk the ramparts at this hour, too late for afternoon and too early for night. A trio of guards gossips over an unlit brazier overlooking the gate, but beyond that she does not pass another soul on her slow walk around Skyhold’s walls.

Cullen, though, is right where she expects.

She joins him without a word. He leans against the wall, forearms braced against the stone. He lacks his usual raiment today; he has taken to shedding his armor since the defeat of Corypheus, and it brings her a quiet comfort to know he is more willing to wander without his usual layers of protection.

“It’s strange, you know,” he says quietly as she settles at his side, still staring out at the mountains. “I can’t believe it’s over.”

She breathes the mountain air, deep as she can until she holds a sliver of the boundless space within her, and blows it out again slow and even. “It feels strange,” she agrees when she feels more settled in her skin. It is harder to feel untethered with the bulk of the mountains rising around her. “I thought it would be more…” She searches for the right words, comes up short. “More.”

“Yes,” he says with shadow of a laugh. “That.”

“I had thought we might be done by now.” She tries for levity, but each words drops like a stone from her lips, choking-heavy. “There’s so much left to do.”

“No rest for the wicked,” he sighs, and when she glances aslant at him the slash of his mouth is a narrow, crooked smile. His eyes drift toward her, and his expression sobers. “You will not face it alone.”

“I know,” she assures him. Solas’ disappearance is a lingering ache, but Dorian continues to put off returning to Tevinter, and the Chargers seem happy to stay, and even Sera and Vivienne have been slow to put their affairs in order. The certainty that they will take their leave eventually weighs on her, but that is, like most things, a worry for tomorrow.

He pushes off the ramparts, shifting closer to her, and she gladly tucks herself against his side. He is softer out of his armor, comfortable, and firm as always. She tilts her head against his shoulder, wordless, and feels the press of his lips against her hair.

“It’s strange,” she murmurs. “I wasn’t certain we would make it.”

“Nor was I,” he admits. “Not in the beginning. But you––” She feels him sigh against her, the rise and fall of his chest. “You have done more than any of us ever hoped.”

“Well,” she says with an actor’s bravado. “I am very good at what I do.”

“The best,” he agrees, and a smile curves across her lips; it lingers a moment before the weight of tomorrow smoothes it away. It is her turn to sigh against him, and his arm tightens around her.

“The victory isn’t mine.”

“Vesper––”

“No, I––” She has worded it poorly; she struggles to straighten out her meaning. “Without you, Josephine, Leliana–– Without Cassandra–– It is not something I can claim alone.”

He shifts against her, and she pulls away enough to catch his gaze, a little sorry and a great deal proud, when he says, “They honor you for it already.”

Her lips twist. “We know better.”

“You do yourself too little credit,” he murmurs, and she sighs again.

“Cullen.”

He shrugs one shoulder, easy and light. “I’m certain Varric will appreciate the accolades, at least. Dorian will be impossible. Josephine might even stoop as low as bragging, and then where will we be?”

“Josephine deserves far more than bragging,” Vesper returns, and he hums out his agreement. “Her own nation, perhaps. A knighthood.”

“We could probably manage that,” Cullen says, as though truly considering it, and Vesper laughs. 

“All I’m trying to say,” she tells him when her bubbling amusement fades to something warm and steady, “is that I’m grateful.”

His face goes soft at that, years and worries falling away, and he cups her cheek gentle as the fading light of the day, as the curling mountain breeze. “As am I.”

She pushes up to kiss him, quiet and soft, hand pressed against the worn leather of his jerkin. His lips are warm against hers, his heartbeat even beneath her palm. He smiles when she pulls away.

“What was that for?”

“Being here,” she says, and she means more that just seeing it through to the end of this too-long war. There have been so very many stumbling blocks in their way; to be standing at some modicum of an ending––of a new beginning, even if it is a tired one––is worth celebrating.

He must understand because he looks at her halfway to helpless and says, “I love you,” with such fragile reverence she must kiss him again, chase away the hairline fractures, seal him whole and strong for a long while yet.

“Thank you,” she says when they part, foreheads pressed together, alone in their stolen moment atop the battlements. She cannot quite put words to her gratitude, but it swells within her nonetheless, hot and bright and bursting, so strong it could shatter her, and she does not know how to say that, that she is all wrapped up in this afterthought of a victory and the well uncertainty of what comes next and the endless, impossible relief that they are still standing among it all.

He holds her tight, steady and solid, and she does not break, and that too is victory.


End file.
